Persian New Year screening – The Apple (1998)
Past

The third of three screenings to mark the Persian New Year, The Apple is the first film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf when she was only 17. The Apple went on to win a number of international awards amongst them the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.

The Apple tells the story of two 12-year-old sisters who have been kept confined in their home by their strict religious father and blind mother, who believe exposing their daughters to the outside world will lead to their corruption, it’s a film perched on the line between fact and fiction.

Not only is the situation described a real one, but each of the characters in the ‘story’ is played by their real-life counterparts. When social workers force the parents to allow their daughters out into the street, the film documents the two sisters’ tentative first impressions of an outside world that’s so long been denied to them.

Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf at the age of only 17, this astonishingly mature first feature combines a swipe at an oppressive society with a joyous ode to awakening senses.